The United States of America have generated many of the myths of modernity and have exported
them to the rest of the world through their mass media, thereby, somehow, standardizing the new
global popular imaginary. American symbols nonetheless have inspired very diverse works of art
that reflect the national culture of their authors and their individual and unique concerns. As a
consequence, the image of the United States as seen through foreign eyes gives us an interesting
new perspective with regard to the influence of this powerful country on other nations. For this
reason, in this thesis, I analyze how Catalan writers, considered culturally peripheral, perceive the
powerful and central “other” and how they can be, at the same time, fascinated by American myths
while remaining critical of the state that produces them.